Just why shouldn’t Trump finances be scrootin’ed the way IRS does for us?

TRUMP: On tax issue, nunya bizness is his 'tude

Monday was Tax Day, and some 50 million U.S. taxpayers (about one-sixth of the nation) waited until the deadline before filing their returns that acknowledge just how much they need to “pay up” to the guv’mint!

Yes, I must confess, I was amongst them. I made my trek to the post office Monday morning to ensure my envelopes to the Internal Revenue Service and Illinois Department of Revenue got the necessary postmarks confirming I met the April 15 deadline.

NOW BECAUSE I’M working the freelance routine, I’m constantly checking my mailbox for checks – none of which have any money withheld for taxes.

Meaning that for me, this is the time of year I have to acknowledge just how big my share of financial support for the state and federal governments during the past year was. And above all else, I have to PAY UP!

My share isn’t significant. Our nation certainly isn’t going to pay off its debts based off what I provide them.

Although it’s like the thoughts of one-time Sen. Everett McKinley Dirksen, who once said, “a billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.”

WHICH IS A thought we should keep in mind when our political people quibble over whether President Donald Trump ought to publicly disclose his own income tax returns.

DIRKSEN: A million here, a million there … 

Unlike most contemporary politicos, Trump has steadfastly refused to make his returns public – taking an attitude that’s something along the lines of “none of your business!”

Although I suspect that Trump’s real reason for so stubbornly refusing to let us see his returns – when putting together my own return this year, I couldn’t help but note the many potential tax write-offs that are available to certain people.

The write-offs that make it possible for them to significantly reduce the amount of their overall income that gets taxed. With some people being able to write off so much that they essentially wind up owing the government nothing.

IT WOULDN’T SHOCK me to learn that the roughly one-quarter I owed in taxes this year of the just under $16,000 I earned as a freelance writer during 2018 would be a larger share than what Trump has paid out.

DALEY: Scrootin'ed?

I’m also sure that the average U.S. taxpayer has an income situation closer to mine than to anything resembling the Trumpster. Which means keeping this issue low-key is more about Trump trying to keep the public from realizing how different he is from they are.

We hear talk from Trump about how his business finances are under audit and he doesn’t want to interfere with any IRS review being done. I think it’s more about him being arrogant enough to think it’s none of our business.

Because if it were our business, we’d have the kind of finances that would make us eligible for all kinds of tax write-offs. Since we don’t, he probably thinks we’re just financial chumps – but certainly doesn’t want it publicly known that he truly regards us as peons.

IT WILL BE interesting to see if House Ways and Means chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., has any luck in swaying the IRS in releasing the past six years worth of Trump’s returns. Or will the IRS conclude that this is merely a Democratic effort at playing partisan politics against the president.

NEAL: Will he get Trump taxes?

We’ll have to see just how much scrutiny our officials want to have done on our president.

Which actually reminds me of the 2001 moment when then-Mayor Richard M. Daley spoke of the concept, saying, “What else do you want? Do you want to take my shorts? Give me a break. How much scrutiny do you want to have? Go scrutinize yourself. I get scrootin’ed every day.”

Perhaps what we really need is for Trump to be scrootin’ed by the masses to make this issue go away. Just like the rest of us are submitting our own finances to by the IRS.

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